• Kat Gupta’s research blog

    caution: may contain corpus linguistics, feminism, activism, LGB, queer and trans stuff, parrots, London

It’s the people we love (the institution will never love you back)

This is a difficult post to write.

On 31st July 2022, I took voluntary severence from the University of Roehampton.

The two programmes I was involved in, the BA English Language and Linguistics and the BA English Language and Literature, are being taught out. In a few years, they will cease to exist.

Even now, I feel the grief rise in my throat as I type.

There was so much about Roehampton that I adored. The scale of the four historic colleges meant that you knew people on the other programmes based there, the head of college, the college student welfare officer (SWO), the programme administrators, the receptionists, the catering staff. It felt very human and very humane.

The campus, at once small and homely and expansive and green, meant that you couldn’t cross it without running into someone you knew. It was a particularly friendly campus with people who were eager to reach out and seek a connection. In these connections I found all sorts of things: a fresh academic idea, a point of connection between disciplines, an interesting bit of campus gossip, a useful resource to direct students towards, someone willing to help you with a project, someone you could help in return, or just the useful information that the Hive were serving up something particularly delicious so get there quick. My goodbye email included people from all five Schools, the library team, the welfare team, the chaplaincy and even a couple of people from senior management. As I typed in their names, I was genuinely astonished at how many people I’d managed to meet over the course of two normal and two pandemic years.

The quiet commitment to providing for students’ wellbeing was holistic, from weekly community lunches to wellbeing/counselling/mental health support to Growhampton, a student-run project caring for (often ex-battery farm) chickens, growing an edible campus and using the eggs and harvest in an on-campus cafe. The wellbeing system was the best I’ve ever encountered in a university setting – you knew who the college SWO was, you’d gone for tea and cake with them, and so you knew exactly who you were directing your students to and how they would be listened to and supported. I could pop an email to the SWO and I wasn’t emailing an anonymous group account – I was emailing Jo, who I’d seen that morning or Em, who I’d had a cup of tea with last week. I could reassure my students that I knew Jo or Em and that they were lovely. It made the process of asking for help that much more approachable.

My colleagues, who were both brilliant and supportive. So many people were doing so many interesting things – I wanted to sit down with pretty much everyone and pick their brains. From them, I learnt how to balance research and teaching, how to run a disciplinary meeting, how to chair a programme board, how to convene a programme. I learnt how to be gracious and generous as both a colleague and a teacher. I knew that they had my back and would step in if I ever needed help, just as I would do so for them. I had the joy of team-teaching on a Digital Media module and it was some of the most fun, playful and adventurous teaching I’ve ever participated in. I am so sad that so many of them have also lost their jobs, and sad for those who remain to teach out the programmes that we so carefully developed and nurtured.

Most of all, I am deeply deeply sad for our students. The statistics will tell you that many of our students were working class, first generation, Black or minority ethnic, disabled, student parents, student carers, care leavers, mature students or, in many cases, a combination of these. They won’t tell you that our students were spirited, determined, occasionally frustrating, and nearly all had an interesting, unique journey to university. One was a mature student who had been raised in a strict religious community; after she left, she took a chance and applied to university and, to her great surprise, was admitted onto the Foundation programme. One had her confidence destroyed during her A-levels; she asked if she could talk to me after our first year induction session and wept in my office, believing that she wasn’t meant for university. One told me with grim pride that she came from the worst school in the borough, and was determined to become a teacher so that she could help others flourish. All three of these students have graduated with Firsts and 2.is, producing work that I would have been delighted by at any of the many other universities at which I’ve taught. Many have struggled with their physical and mental health, and I’ve fought for these students to get the support and flexibility that would allow them to fulfil their potential.

So many of these students would have floundered in big Russell Group universities or just silently disengaged. Our small cohorts meant that we got to know them and they got to know us. I like to think that they talked to me not just as their academic guidance tutor or programme convenor, but as as an individual that they’d come to know and trust. Roehampton was the first place where I’d properly got to develop my own modules over a period of years (rather than the one-and-done of so much of my previous teaching) and the nature of teaching modules on identity and gender meant that I was very careful to create spaces that were respectful, open and supportive. I brought (some of) myself into my modules, and my students brought (some of) themselves. They shared in beautiful, unexpected ways: the student parents who discussed how they were raising their children; the young women who articulated shifting between the different worlds of university, work, religious life and family life; the young men who were thinking carefully about masculinity and consciously choosing to be kind. At least one student came out to me every time I taught the module on the Sociolinguistics of Gender – not necessarily because they’d come to that realisation, but because they decided that I was someone they could trust with that knowledge.

I’m selectively writing about my experiences at Roehampton. There are things that I cannot write about under the terms of my settlement agreement. Do not believe for a second that everything was perfect: it wasn’t. It is always stressful being at a small post-92 in an expensive city that doesn’t have large financial reserves, compounded by the pandemic and the lifting of the student cap. I had more than my fill of stressful days and sleepless nights.

I am choosing what I will remember.

I am choosing what I will take with me.

What I have learnt is that people and the connections you make are important. Without that, there is nothing. The institution will never love you back, and it will never reward (or even acknowledge) loyalty or sacrifice. There is no point in offering loyalty to an entity incapable of valuing it.

People, though – people are the lifeblood of any organisation. I choose to take from these nearly four years at Roehampton the following: a deep sense of care for my students and colleagues; the aim of creating spaces that are expansive and welcoming and supportive and challenging; the joy of helping someone flourish and the fierce pride in their achievements (whatever they may be); the vocation of teaching students who are underrepresented in higher education and ensuring that they have the resources and support they need to be successful; the recognition of people as whole beings and not solely work colleagues or students. I hope I will always value people and connection, and place them at the centre of my pedagogy.

At the moment, It is still too raw, too painful. But one day I hope I will be grateful for these years that have shaped me into a kinder, more thoughtful, more generous, more gracious person and scholar.

Hope’s a burden or it sets you free

I tend to keep job talk off this blog; as a precariously employed academic, it is a constant, heart-bruising process of hope and imaginings and trying to pick up institutional knowledge as swiftly as possible. Since 2013, I have not been entirely sure what I’ll be doing the next year – I’ve worked at four universities and taught over fifteen very different modules, and my summers are generally me hustling for work.

Last year I was lucky enough to land a full-time ten month position as a teaching fellow at the University of Sussex, my joy tempered by my knowledge that in a matter of months I would be leaving and that time was ticking, speeding, trickling or whatever it does in your movement metaphor of choice. I never bothered to unsubscribe from the jobs.ac.uk emails and was preparing further applications even as I met my students and gave my first lectures.

Lebanese cedar

I had a marvellous year living by the sea: storms and sunsets and snow on the beach; reading as I basked on the pebbles on the blazing days of 2018’s glorious summer; pacing along the shore at dawn after another sleepness night, tiny, soft wavelets shushing against the stones and a hushed pastel sunrise.

It was an academic year that I was determined to enjoy, knowing that I wouldn’t be staying and that I had no idea what would come next. Precarious academic labour is cruel, giving you just enough to feed your hope; if next year it will get better, if you can stick it out another year on the chance next year will be your year.

This is to say that this year, I have been one of the lucky few to secure permanent employment and I feel kind of conflicted. I am so, so angry at the state of academic labour, so full of grief and fury for the brilliant people being exploited by institutions that have figured out that perfectionist, compassionate, highly motivated people are eminently exploitable. It’s a weird sort of survivor’s guilt.

I am having to learn new things: how to build relationships with colleagues that aren’t going to end in six or ten months; how to build a rapport with students that will steer them through their full programme of study; that I can develop teaching materials and be able to use them more than once; perhaps even to feel invested in a university and to build a relationship with the institution itself. I am still nervy, wary, wondering, unable to believe that for now at least, I don’t have to fill out job applications and, as Rachel Moss so eloquently describes,

lay out the pieces of yourself as teacher, scholar, writer, administrator, colleague, present each in a slightly new and polished way for the specific criteria of each post, and then rebuild yourself in the narrative of the cover letter, framing yourself as the person they need. It is a fiction, but a powerful one, requiring imagining yourself into that place and space. And if you get to interview it is a deeper fiction still, where you must say: these are my colleagues, these are my students, even if I have not met them yet. And then, when the answer is no, you will unpack yourself again, wondering what can still be sifted and refined, so that next time the answer is different.

Perhaps I can be the person I polished for them, let these imaginings solidify into something more tangible than promises.

The photo is of a Lebanese cedar tree on the University of Roehampton campus, my new workplace. It is huge, towering, magnificent. It is perhaps coming to the end of its lifespan. A few metres away is a tiny, slender sapling, a Lebanese cedar of whip-thin branches and tender foliage, planted for renewals and futures and hope.

Learning and teaching consent with a parrot

There is a new creature living in my house. She communicates through raised and sleek feathers, eye-pinning, a whole range of chuckles, beeps and squawks (at the moment she’s sounding weirdly like R2-D2). She has a beak capable of biting off chunks of wood. Sometimes I jokingly call her a dinosaur or an alien as a way of making sense of her strangeness, but she is a creature of earth and sky and the present day and I feel uncomfortable suggesting that she is of a different time or space. The problem lies with me and with my lack of familiarity.

So, a bit about her: she’s a parrot, a Bronze Wing Pionus to be precise. She’s approaching her first birthday and I’ve had her for three months. Before I got her, she was kept with other young Bronze Wings so hopefully she knows she’s a bird rather than being so imprinted on humans it will cause her problems when she hits sexual maturity.

It’s a very different experience from dealing with dogs or rats or cats or horses or pretty much any other animal I’ve looked after. I am used to soft fur and touch as comfort. I am used to space-invading snuggles, sleepy mammals piled up on top of each other so you can barely tell where each animal ends and another begins. I am used to being able to pick up and/or easily handle most of these animals. Leia will not tolerate these casual liberties. She’s fully flighted, has never been clipped, and can easily choose to avoid me if she wishes. I am trying to show her that I will listen to her and respect her wishes so she can tell me if she’s unhappy or doesn’t want to do something without resorting to biting. Her ancestors have not been selectively bred for tameness and compliance. She is not hardwired to accept dominance or hierarchy; instead there is flock, and careful, subtle, shifting negotiations within the flock.

We have spent much of the past three months learning about each other and how to understand what the other is trying to communicate. In a way it is an experiment, but only in the same way that all my relationships are experiments. I’ve found a lot of my understanding about consent to be applicable to this wild and clever creature.

My feelings do not override her feelings
I loved Leia before I ever met her. Her breeder sent me regular photos and updates about her. I saw her as a tiny, naked baby; as a downy youngster growing her wing feathers; at weaning; with her parents and clutchmates. I learnt what toys she liked and made sure I got her some. I scoured the internet for a suitable cage and, dismayed at how small and high the majority are, ended up ordered a custom made cage. I went into this knowing the commitment I was making to a bird that might hate me, try to attack me and who I may never touch. I was enchanted anyway.

Leia stepped out of the box she was transported in and erupted into flight. I am much smaller than her breeder. I have darker skin and my voice is different and my movements are different and, horrors, I wear glasses. I am a stranger to her and she needed time to work out if she was willing to trust me. I might have loved her but she had no idea who I was and whether I was an acceptable flock member. I had to let her learn about me on her terms. I couldn’t let my feelings override her autonomy. Forcing my presence on her would have been counterproductive, making me into a thing to be feared and avoided.

She was interested in me and wanted to watch what I was doing. She wanted to sit on her stand on my desk and watch me. She was happy to accept treats and toys from my hands. I had to take things at her pace. It took her about three weeks to accept a headscratch from me.

A “yes” is only as meaningful as a “no”
I ask Leia is she wants a headscratch by making a scratch motion with my fingers above her head, within her sight and crucially, not touching her. If she doesn’t want a headscratch, she’ll either beak my fingers or move away. If she does want a headscratch, she’ll bow her head and fluff up her head feathers. I’m trying to show her that I’ll respect her “no” – that she can tell me “no” and I won’t ignore it and do the thing anyway. I hope to teach her that she doesn’t have to reinforce her “no” with a bite or, worse, feel she has to go straight for the bite as that’s the only thing I’ll understand.

However, Leia sometimes beaks my fingers while I’m scratching her and these seem to have a variety of meanings. I’m now trying to work out if her grabbing my fingers with her beak is a “no, not now”, a “yes, and I’m going to direct you to a particularly itchy spot”, a “stop, I’ve had enough”, a “stop, that was the wrong spot” or her preening me in return. We’re still working out the complexities of that bit of communication. She’s usually pretty gentle even when telling me to stop, and I think that’s because she doesn’t feel the need to go harder. She trusts that I’ll listen.

Consent is everyday
Consent isn’t just about the big things like medical interventions or sex. Asking for, receiving or being denied consent is present in so many of our interactions. I do it when I check with a student if it’s alright to forward information on to someone else, check with a child whether they’d prefer a hug, handshake or something else, and give my students the information they need to make an informed choice about how they engage with difficult, upsetting material. Living with Leia is a masterclass in making these negotiations explicit and visible.

Leia now sits on my knee while I work, and increasingly often hauls herself up my sleeve so she can sit on my shoulder. She has begun to step up onto my arm when she feels like it, but as she steps up nicely onto a rope perch I see no reason to push it. I’ve taught her to target a (chop)stick. We have several headscratching sessions a day, and she preens my hair and has tried to preen my eyelashes with extraordinary gentleness. We are working out how to have contact calls so she knows I’m around even if she can’t see me. She appears to have taught me to retrieve by throwing her foot toys off my desk and looking expectantly at me. Last night I lay on the floor to read, and for part of this I had a small parrot wandering around on my back.

It’s challenging trying to communicate across such a species barrier. She can probably see in UV, and probably uses her feathers and light to communicate in ways I am literally blind to. I am probably just as challenging for her to read, with my mammal ways and glasses covering my eyes and fabric coverings. We are muddling our way through, and beginning to make sense of each other.

How to improve Samaritans Radar

I’m on my way out of the house so can’t write why I think the new Samaritans app, Samaritans Radar, is a terrible idea; instead, I suggest reading what these people have already written about it.

Another Angry Woman: I do not consent to #SamaritansRadar
Queer Blue Water: Email to Samaritans about Radar
Latent Existence: Samaritans Radar and Twitter’s Public Problem
Jon Mendel: Problems with Samaritans Radar
Jon Mendal has also written two posts discussing Samaritans Radar from a research ethics point of view: post 1 and post 2
Joey McK: Why the Samaritans’ Radar is bone stupid

Here’s a really easy way this whole mess could have been avoided: trusted lists.

You download the app. It shows you which of the people you follow you AND who follow you back have also downloaded the app.

You can then send a request. Maybe something like this: “Hi, I noticed you use Samaritans Radar. I want to be able to support you if I can so feel free to add me to your trusted list”

Or you can request someone to be on your trusted list: “Hi, I noticed you use Samaritans Radar. I’m building my support network on here and would like to add you to it”.

Both users have to agree to this; for example, I can’t add someone to my trusted list if they don’t agree, and no one can add me to their trusted list unless I agree. These relationships don’t have to be reciprocal; there are lots of reasons why someone might not be able to offer support to someone in mental distress (for example, their own mental health issues – it’s really difficult to support someone who’s severely depressed when you’re severely depressed yourself).

You can also remove someone from your trusted list or remove yourself from someone’s trusted list. I’d be inclined for this not to be flagged up.

Email alerts then get sent out to people on the trusted list. Users can also add things to their list of “stuff to be flagged” so they don’t have to be explicit about their mental health on an account that their employer or colleagues follow.

This literally took about five minutes to think about and ten minutes to write. It’s not hard to think of ways you can protect people who are at risk of twitter abuse.

In which I get a new rucksack and am overexcited about it

Photo by K Gupta

Photo by K Gupta

This term I’ve been teaching in London. As I still live in Nottingham, this has required me to hoof myself down to London for a 10am class. Thanks to some kind friends who’ve let me stay on their mattresses, airbeds, beanbags and sofas, I’ve managed to all but avoid the expensive 6:30am train (and accompanying horribly early alarm). However, I’ve had to carry a lot of stuff around me and it was therefore with dismay that I noticed my faithful rucksack’s shoulderstrap coming off one morning on the tube. I’ve had that rucksack since I started my MA in 2006 and it’s been with me through my MA and PhD, two universities, three departments, trips to India and Egypt, many conferences and numerous visits to friends and family all over the country so I suppose it’s earned its retirement.

However, this left me without a rucksack.

A friend suggested Osprey and I splurged on the Osprey Momentum 30. This is totally Sam Vimes’ Theory of Economic Injustice – I am hard on my bags, and at the moment I’m being paid. It therefore makes sense to spend money on something that will last (I hope) than buying a cheap bag that will fall apart when I load it up with library books, leak on library books/my laptop or be uncomfortable to carry or cycle with.

This review is of an older and slightly bigger model but I was impressed by the thoughtful design and quality. This review and this review are both of the model I went with. The photo below is of all the stuff I routinely carry with me.

Photo by K Gupta

Photo by K Gupta

Going from left to right we have a hardback book (unusually, only one), my university ID cards, my laptop and charger, a shirt, assorted highlighters, the grey notebook I use to keep my conference notes together, my wallet and keys, my filofax, bike lights, shower soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, forks and paracetamol. I’d usually also have PJ bottoms and underwear with me but you get the idea.

The Momentum 30 copes admirably with all this and more – I even got my softbound thesis in there as well as everything else and it was great not to have to lug that around in a carrier bag. The pockets are spacious enough to be useful; I use one of the side pockets as a washbag and can easily fit shower soap, moisturiser and facewash in there. So many pockets means that I can use them for different things and as a result, no one has to know that I’m taking my PJs and toothbrush into work as I won’t accidentally pull them out along with my laptop charger[1]. The small zipped pocket in the main compartment is big enough to fit keys, my wallet, pens and my passport but small enough that these don’t get lost among the other stuff.

I live in an area where cycling is an everyday thing. While I’ve seen (and admired) a proper Dutch cargo bike chained up, I’ve seen more bikes with interesting cargo-carrying modifications – shopping baskets are a popular addition or, as in this fine example, a washing up bowl. I’ve not been doing my cycling commute much recently but this bag did very well on a trip to the shops – it comfortably held 4 litres of laundry liquid and fabric conditioner as well as my food shopping. The side straps can be tightened to make the bag more compact and it means you don’t have the bag shifting weight while cycling.

The bag can also be used for hand luggage on planes and I easily fitted nearly a week’s worth of clothes as well as laptop, book etc when I visited my partner recently.

About the only thing I’m not sold on is the laptop compartment against my back; it’s a bit big for my laptop so more a personal preference than a design flaw. Instead, my laptop goes into the document pocket in the main compartment and I use the laptop compartment to keep shirts flat when travelling. It would also be nice to have some way of tucking loose straps – I’ll probably make some ties or find clips but the lack of these seems odd in an otherwise thoughtfully designed bag.

It’s made me think about how things can be so much easier with the right tools and equipment. This term has been stressful enough as it is – among other things, I’ve been working three jobs (four if you count monthly invigilation), organising a module and working out the logistics of travel – and I simply don’t want to have to think about how I’m going to transport my stuff or for how long I can comfortably carry it or the chances of my stuff getting damaged or left behind somewhere. It’s been so nice to have room to keep some things in this bag permanently (and therefore not risk forgetting them) and it’s made my crash course in survival skills for the young academic that much easier.

As someone who cares for the environment, is broadly anti-capitalist and is against buying stuff for the sake of it, I am trying to surround myself with things that are good at what they do and which will last. I don’t want to keep having to replace things that wear out too soon – I want to be able to get something and be confident that it will be usable in 10 years or 20 years or longer. Hopefully this bag will be one of them.

[1]It pains me slightly that my life has become one where I consider not pulling out a toothbrush in front of my students/colleagues to be a minor triumph, and yet here we are.

Edinburgh post!

I am currently at the Edinburgh Fringe performing in Lashings of Ginger Beer Time’s production of Fanny Whittington. This is my first ever acting (deemed too rubbish for the school play in secondary school and I’m not sure being a tree in a primary school assembly counts) and I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying it! My thesis is also making its acting debut as the script calls for a Really Big Book.

Today I saw two other acts. First up was Job Seekers Anonymous by Sh!t Theatre. Becca and Louise – or “Blouise” – are a confident duo of the “laugh because otherwise you’d cry” school of comedy. JSA was, by turns, funny, frustrated and despairing. Because being young and and un(der)employed and skint[1] and trying really hard to navigate the baffling maze of employment, internships, benefits and what you want from life is pretty rubbish. The act did what it said on the tin but what made it enjoyable was Blouise’s energetic delivery of visual metaphors, statistics, and experiences.

I’m not totally sure it worked as a one hour act – there was a bit in the middle where I thought it lost some of its energy and focus – but on the whole, it did a good job of outlining the various interlocking factors that make being un(der)employed so dispiriting and difficult to break out of.

Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang was the surprise of the evening. I wasn’t sure what to expect – the description of “‘Carry On…’ meets Hilary Mantel” wasn’t too promising and I expected some kind of “ooo Matron” campery. However, I was blown away.

The stage was simply set with a minimum of props – a panel cut out in the shape of the supports for a stained glass window, fallen pillars and two boxes. Over the course of the play, the pillars are righted and candles placed upon them.

John Burrows and David Brett both play a range of characters based in a monastery at the time of the Reformation, from the lowly Brothers Adam and Stephan, the Abbott, other monks, the Abbott’s brother, his wife, her various maidservants, and Dr Layton, the dreaded representative of Thomas Cromwell, the Vicar General. I was struck by their physicality and how they signalled the different characters they were inhabiting using nothing but body language, gestures and posture. I also enjoyed the way they moved around the stage, using its space in an agile and imaginative way.

The play moves through farce, camp comedy, sung Latin chants and heartbreak. I was convulsing with laughter at the use of the Te Deum and by the end, felt I’d been on an emotional journey. No one-note comedy, this was a meditation on mistakes, regrets, devotion, loss, love, and the crumbling of everything familiar and dear to the characters.

It’s at a rather specialised nexus of Catholicism, gay stuff, and history so I’m not sure how far its appeal extends, but I certainly enjoyed it.

Tomorrow I hope to see the intriguingly named Ladyboner

Also, in the midst of this, I sent off my thesis corrections. The end (the proper end) might just be in sight.

[1] I admit, part of the reason I saw these two plays was because they’re at the same venue we’re performing at and I could get in for free with my performer’s pass.

My worst student

Today I’ve been grumpily following the Same-Sex Marriage Bill debate, contemplating my thesis corrections and pouring acetic acid into my sore ear so I have to admit, I’m not in the best of moods. And then I saw that the Times Higher Education decided to encourage academics to share their stories of their worst students on twitter. Aside from the obvious problems about professionalism and ethics, I don’t like the sneering.

You see, I was someone’s worst student.

Not in university – I’d mostly sorted myself out by then – but in sixth-form. I was doing an A-level in something I’d previously been good at and for which I was in the top set at GCSE, but at A-level my grades plummeted from As to Es. I couldn’t understand the material – I tried so hard and it constantly defeated me. I tried reading around the subject; I tried talking myself through it; I tried just knuckling down and memorising it. It slipped away from me, no matter what I tried or how hard I tried. It’s a horrible feeling to be so utterly powerless – to feel like your intellect has abandoned you, that whatever you try you’re going to fail, that you are stupid and worthless and wasting everyone’s time. It felt like being dropped into a world where the rules were opaque and all-powerful and I was constantly one crucial step behind. Every lesson was an ordeal, something to just survive for the next two hours and, eventually, to resent.

Naturally, the teacher and I loathed each other. He’d taught me when I was actually good at this stuff and in retrospect, probably couldn’t understand why I was suddenly so appallingly bad at it. If I was in his position and a student had suddenly gone from being one of the best in the class to the very worst, I would have sought help for this student. He didn’t. Instead he alternately ignored me – it was a very results-focused school and I was clearly not going contribute to his clutch of As – and bullied me. Because I was 17 and a bit of a twat, I made it quietly clear that I resented him every bit as he resented me. One day I snapped and told him that I wished I could drop this subject (I was very polite in my twattishness!). The next day, my Head of Year pulled me into her office and berated me for hurting his feelings.

I threw up every morning before school from the sheer anxiety of once more stepping into that classroom and once more, being utterly, helplessly adrift.

I have never, ever forgotten that feeling of being so totally lost. Not when I found a subject I loved, not when I got a First for my BA, not when I graduated from my masters, not when my examiners shook my hand after my viva, and especially not when teaching.

I’ve taught students who were uninterested, resentful and hungover – it’s one of the problems of teaching a compulsory Language module when most of the students would rather be doing Literature. I’ve occasionally got frustrated when marking. I know I don’t have much experience, but I hope I never get worn down by it. I hope I create an atmosphere in my seminars where students can make mistakes, test ideas that might not work or admit that they don’t understand something. I hope I can be sensitive to the students who struggle, and I hope I know when I’m out of my depth. I hope I never belittle or sneer at students – not when they frustrate me, not when they apparently don’t try, not when they appear to be hopelessly bad at something. I hope I am respectful and compassionate to the ones who resent me. I hope I am patient when it matters.

As an academic, we tend to be working in an area we love and that we’re good at. We’ve probably never been crushingly bad at something we now teach. Given the kind of grades we’re expected to get to enter a degree programme, then a Masters, then a PhD, we may never have been crushingly bad at any academic subject. I, with my E in that A-level, somehow sneaked in. I’m not proud of that grade, but the harsh lessons I learnt in that classroom have shaped my teaching forever.

Other posts:
Caroline Magennis: On Teaching
Kirsty Rolfe: Talking teaching on Twitter (and talking nicely to students)

life after thesis submission

My PhD supervisor told me to have a break after submitting so I did. In the past couple of weeks I’ve been to Death: a self-portrait at the Wellcome Collection, London’s Diversity Choir’s performance of Duruflé’s Requiem, the Transpose: Cinematic Edition and, yesterday, June Purvis’ public lecture on “The Struggle For Women’s Suffrage In Britain, 1865-1928”. All of these events were fascinating in their different ways and it was nice to remind myself that I have interests outside my thesis.

I also came down with a bad cold because my Faustian pacts of “please body, just let me get through this term/chapter/thesis and then you can be as ill as you want” eventually caught up with me – although more prosaically, my terrible pre-submission diet of peanuts, pumpkin seeds and cheese sandwiches might have had something to do with it.

I have a viva date and will be hurling myself into viva preparation soon, but at the moment I’m writing a talk I’m going to give on Monday about trans* media representation. It’s my first 45ish minute presentation so I’m a little nervous, but luckily there’s a lot I can talk about and I’m having fun planning the structure and content. I’m planning to end up at a place where I can talk about trans* people representing themselves in film, music and journalism – there are some brilliant projects out there like My Genderation and META magazine – although there are still massive problems with the way trans* people are reported in the mainstream press.

It’s at 7pm on Monday 11th March in the Portland building, University of Nottingham – do come if you can make it.

Student life and pets

I’m currently wading through critical theory but I read this article by a student who was lonely so they bought a kitten and I’m pretty cross.

Rats sleeping in a chicken feeder

Photo by K Gupta

Firstly, I’ve grown up around animals. My parents both grew up with pets and our family got our first dog when I was three. Apart from one horrible week where none of us coped, we have always had at least one dog since. We’ve also had fish, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, gerbils and stick insects. I’ve worked at a vet’s boarding kennels and cattery, and have also worked a bit with horses.

At the moment I have five rats who live in what my mum has affectionately dubbed “the Rat Palace” and enjoy a life of luxury. I believe that animals are good for us – they provide companionship and entertainment and relaxation.

However, they’re also a commitment and I don’t think the article really addresses this.

Most degrees last between three and four years. Lots of animals live longer than this and in the case of cats, as much as 15-18 years. What’s going to happen to the cat after you graduate? Animal rescues are already full – are you going to contribute to the problem? Bear in mind that if you adopt an animal from a shelter, it may have already experienced upheaval and abandonment.

Pets can be expensive. You can get yourself into a nice routine of budgeting for food and bedding, shopping around for the best deal – but your pet can always get ill or get injured and vet fees are expensive. Somehow, animals always pick the worst possible moment to get sick. You probably won’t be eligible for PDSA vet care. You might choose to get pet insurance but read the terms and conditions carefully – alternatively, some people choose to put away some money every month into a vet fund. If you’re already struggling with money and living off beans and toast, please think very very hard about getting a pet.

Many students will move house at least once during the course of their degrees and finding a landlord who allows pets can be tricky, especially if you have a dog or cat. I’ve always checked if they’re alright with “small caged pets”. Some people just don’t tell their landlord but you’ve got to ask yourself whether it’s worth the stress, hassle and risk of losing your deposit. It can also be difficult if you want to spend the holidays with parents. If they have pets, your animals might have to be carefully introduced and you’ll have to hope that they all get on. Your parents’ house might not be suitable for a dog or cat (on a main road, allergic family members, no garden etc). If you have caged pets, you either have to work out how you’ll transport the cage or set up another, holiday cage at your parent’s home.

Please think very carefully about getting a “house pet”. It’s great if all your housemates are equally enthusiastic but who pays vet bills? who looks after the pet during the holidays? who does the not-very-fun stuff like cleaning out cages or litter trays? what happens to the animal when you stop living together? what happens if you disagree on an aspect of its care?

Student loneliness is a problem – at one point, I had three contact hours a week as an undergraduate – but there’s more to owning a pet than just wanting one. There was no way I could have had a pet when I was an undergraduate; my life was just too unsettled and I couldn’t have cared for it properly. If you’re desperate to have some contact with animals and you have some experience of caring for them, you could always offer dog walking or pet sitting services, volunteer in a shelter or even temporarily foster an animal. There are much better ways of dealing with student loneliness than going out and buying a kitten.

Thesis in progress

Venn diagram of the thesis writing experience

I am currently trying to finish off the thesis. In a moment of despair, I decided to attempt to summarise my life in the form of a Venn diagram.

I am intimately familiar with all three of these things (admittedly, less so with “childhood”) and sometimes all you can do is make an (admittedly crappy) joke out of it.